Tino Sehgal

In the midst –or possibly the end- of the greatest bubble the art market has ever known this book is an analysis of Sehgal’s work in relation to the art market and looks at the value of art. Artist Tino Sehgal does not produce any tangible work but performance-like ‘constructed situations’ the photographing and documentation of which he prohibits. However they are exhibited and sold like any other work of art. Based on the writings of great scholars in the field this book investigates why the institutional framework of the museum is essential to Sehgal’s work and constitutes it as a commodity and how immaterial art can circulate through the art market. Tracing Sehgal’s legacy back to Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp we see their lasting influences that contributed to the current art market in which works are sold as a system of IP-rights. A look is taken at these artists’ tautological claim to producing visual art the mystification of their practice and the establishing of brand names. Exploring issues that all art is inscribed in we arrive at a situation in art history where the value and the price of art seem to have been conflated.